Friday, July 23, 2010

A fun episode I recall in my life was those initial training days at Allsec. We were doing accent training. And you've probably already heard how these things go. Everything thing is 'American'. You've to learn something about their culture everyday. We were doing a fun session one day - dumb charades - on American movie title's. Its usually played with two teams. A team thinks of a movie title, and picks a target from the opponent team. The person from the other team has to enact it in front of his/her team until they figure the movie.

This activity is really fun. The only sad part was, that day most people were only getting to know what dumb charades were - they were being 'trained'. (Sigh). So, my trainer was the one who enacted a movie she thought of. There were several teams in this case; and I belonged to a team way back in the last seat.

Most of the people there were not exposed to this 'american movie culture'. Hence they were slow at figuring out movie names. But there were a few who were quick at it too. The trainer, took a bit of a pause trying to figure out what to enact next. She began; she hinted the title contains 4 words. She was going to enact the 4th one. She put her hands one above the other, and started moving her thumbs. She was trying to convey its a fish; she was hoping people would figure out the word 'turtle' eventually.

I began to think:

Fish?...Do I know a movie with a "fish" in it?

Then someone accidentally spurted 'turtle'. By now, I thought, damn, any one could have guessed this by now. The excitement in the trainer's eyes was proof enough.

I laid back. The trainer was actually enacting it to some other team if I remember correctly. It seemed to me that they'd pass.

And they did.

Still no one could figure.

She started doing the "fish" again. She couldn't speak; it was how the game had to be played.

I finally did it. I shouted TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

Dead silence in the room. Everyone turned their heads towards my direction. Everyone was probably thinking how can he guess that movie from a "fish"? Someone posted a doubt quietly: did he go to college or the cinema theatre for graduation?

I on the other hand wondered how was she going to enact the word 'mutant'? - She was still standing there, surprised, doing the fish...